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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Rats Ahoy!

Rats Ahoy!

by Betty Cracker|  September 30, 201612:33 pm| 250 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads, Politics, Republican Stupidity, Assholes, General Stupidity

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Trump has to win Florida or it’s all over. He has a shot here; this is a state that elected certified crook and possible alien life form from Planet Reptar Rick Scott as governor twice (albeit with less than 50% of the vote both times).

So given the stakes, if there’s anywhere in the country where the Trump campaign should be staffed with the “best people,” flush with supplies and chugging along on all cylinders, it’s Florida, right? Nope:

A Florida Trump aide resigned Monday because she said she’s uncomfortable with the lack of progress in the campaign. “It is clear the campaign is now going in a direction I am no longer comfortable with and I have decided to move on,” said Healy Baumgardner, who had established herself early on as a public face of the campaign on TV, then saw her role shift to Florida following several campaign shake-ups.

Baumgardner, a 20-year political operative who has worked on four presidential campaigns, said she looks forward “to honorably casting my vote for Mr. Trump on Election Day.”

Clinton is 4 percentage points ahead of Trump in Florida, according to a Mason-Dixon Polling & Research survey taken after the debate.

The campaign’s Trump Talk phone banking system is experiencing technical difficulties, said Florida campaign workers who requested anonymity out of fear of getting fired for speaking publicly. The lack of basic campaign staples such as yard signs and bumper stickers forces staff to repeatedly turn away excited Trump backers who want to show their support. There’s disagreement about spending $40,000 to wrap an RV in campaign advertising for a women’s bus tour in Florida.

Healy Baumgardner doesn’t understand the meaning of the word “honor;” she is a rat deserting a sinking ship in a cowardly bid to preserve her employability in future contests. She has an inside view of what’s happening to the campaign, and she doesn’t want to be associated with it.

I have a feeling we’re going to see that pattern repeated many times in the coming weeks. Other party hacks who’ve fastened themselves to Trump like remoras on a bloated orange shark will detach their lips from that foul carcass and suddenly rediscover their “principles.”

They’ll probably get away with it too, given this country’s short attention span and endless capacity to tolerate fools and knaves. Hell, the Republican Party recovered from the Bush 2.0 debacle in just a couple of years.

But those of us who understand the magnitude of what these fuckers have done — their attempt to hook an unhinged demagogue up with the nuclear codes — should never, ever forget it. Not just the party hacks, the voters who support Trump. They’ve shown us who they are. We can’t unsee it. Ever.

ETA: Link to live stream of Hillary Clinton speaking in Florida. She coughed. We’re doomed, DOOMED, I say!

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Previous Post: « Trump on a Wee-Hours Twitter Tear (Updated)
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Reader Interactions

250Comments

  1. 1.

    dmsilev

    September 30, 2016 at 12:36 pm

    Has anyone told Donald yet? I’m sure he could send out a fascinating set of Tweets

  2. 2.

    Feebog

    September 30, 2016 at 12:39 pm

    The campaign’s Trump Talk phone banking system is experiencing technical difficulties, said Florida campaign workers who requested anonymity out of fear of getting fired for speaking publicly.

    A campaign run on fear and loathing. That’ll work.

  3. 3.

    Mike E

    September 30, 2016 at 12:40 pm

    It seems the blood of his campaign is coming out of… wherever.

  4. 4.

    Tom Levenson

    September 30, 2016 at 12:41 pm

    @Mike E: Well played.

  5. 5.

    hueyplong

    September 30, 2016 at 12:41 pm

    Maybe she hasn’t been getting paid.

  6. 6.

    MrSnrub

    September 30, 2016 at 12:42 pm

    Good chance she’s not voting for him, but won’t say so publically.

  7. 7.

    Jonathan Marcus

    September 30, 2016 at 12:43 pm

    A 20-year-old who has worked on 4 presidential campaigns?? Does that mean she started “working” on campaigns when she was 8? Or that she’s a rat who’s jumped from campaign to campaign as each one folded?

  8. 8.

    MJS

    September 30, 2016 at 12:45 pm

    @Jonathan Marcus: “A 20 year political operative”, not “20 year old political operative”.

  9. 9.

    nonynony

    September 30, 2016 at 12:46 pm

    @Jonathan Marcus: She’s not 20 years old, she’s a 20-year political operative. She’s probably in her 40s (maybe late 30s if she started working on campaigns at 18, but I’d bet in her 40s).

  10. 10.

    Jonathan Marcus

    September 30, 2016 at 12:46 pm

    @MJS: Yep. Reading comprehension fail. Realized right after I posted. I deleted my comment.

  11. 11.

    sukabi

    September 30, 2016 at 12:47 pm

    Weirdest campaign ad I’ve ever seen is one put on by one of drumpfs super pacs, it’s got Ben Carson and someone else touting drumpfs “qualifications” and then giving a phone number to call to pledge support for drumpf….fucking weird…probably just a way to get people’s info for the next con.

  12. 12.

    Keith P.

    September 30, 2016 at 12:48 pm

    That sex tape tweet is causing Trump to get absolutely slaughtered this morning. On the news and on the Internets, it’s a big collective “What the hell is going on in this man’s head? 3am tweet about a sex tape???!??”

  13. 13.

    hovercraft

    September 30, 2016 at 12:49 pm

    @dmsilev:
    Is he still tweeting this afternoon? Hillary and friends pantsed him pretty good this morning. Maybe the phone’s been confiscated until the new meds kick in.

  14. 14.

    fuddmain

    September 30, 2016 at 12:49 pm

    And we’ll probably re-elect Senator Breadmold.

    Still, Trump’s sad excuse for a ground game has to have an effect. I also like to imagine many of Trump’s supporter are so stupid they probably aren’t registered to vote, don’t know what day the election is, don’t know where their polling place is, and couldn’t find it if they did. Keeps me sane.

  15. 15.

    sukabi

    September 30, 2016 at 12:50 pm

    @MrSnrub: she probably had to sign one of those lifetime nondisparagment agreements, and doesn’t want to be wrapped up in litigation in the courts or social media…

  16. 16.

    MJS

    September 30, 2016 at 12:50 pm

    I see where Ms. Machado has responded to Trump. She did so in Spanish (nice) and did not mention him by name, but instead refers to “the Republican candidate” (nicer – attaches him to down-ballot Republicans).

  17. 17.

    Betty Cracker

    September 30, 2016 at 12:50 pm

    @sukabi: I’ve only seen one Trump ad in Florida so far: It was a montage of Trump bellowing meaningless slogans at brain-dead fanboys at rallies. Not very effective.

  18. 18.

    NR

    September 30, 2016 at 12:50 pm

    Monmouth poll today has Hillary up by 6 in Nevada. Good to see, since that was one of the Obama states Trump had pretty consistently led in. Would like to see it confirmed with other polls though.

    They also had the Republican up 3 in the Senate race with lots of undecideds, so it’s not all good news unfortunately.

  19. 19.

    Booger

    September 30, 2016 at 12:52 pm

    @MJS: She’s been remarkably classy throughout her second fifteen minutes in the spotlight, ably turning it into Machado about nothing.

  20. 20.

    amk

    September 30, 2016 at 12:52 pm

    honorably casting my vote for Mr. Trump

    so many oxymorons in one sentence.

  21. 21.

    TaMara (HFG)

    September 30, 2016 at 12:52 pm

    My hope is the molten hot lava meltdown of the Drumpf wipes out everyone who has attached themselves to him in any form, no matter how reluctantly.

  22. 22.

    scav

    September 30, 2016 at 12:54 pm

    @MrSnrub: Doesn’t she have to speak exceedingly well of him per some magical statement she would have to sign even before volunteering, let alone getting theoretically paid? Anyone have a photo of finger-alignment behind her back?

  23. 23.

    MJS

    September 30, 2016 at 12:55 pm

    @Booger: I don’t know whether to groan, or groan. I think I’ll groan.

  24. 24.

    sukabi

    September 30, 2016 at 12:55 pm

    @Betty Cracker: the drumpf ads that I’ve seen so far (Wash. State) are 1 official drumpf ad spouting empty slogans and 2 different ones by a super pac that are different versions of the Carson ad… both look like they MIGHT be an attempt at voter registration? but are more likely a set up for the next con.

  25. 25.

    scav

    September 30, 2016 at 12:55 pm

    @MJS: I went with a stunned admiring silence.

  26. 26.

    Tommy 2 Times

    September 30, 2016 at 12:55 pm

    Betty,

    I was in TI last week and saw only one Trump bumper sticker, saw some Trump yard signs when we drove up to Clearwater for a day. Not that this means anything about which way Pinellas County or FLA will go, but I was surprised at the lack of candidate advertising. Saw a few Hillary bumper stickers. And of course had a great meal and margaritas at the VIP…

  27. 27.

    Shell

    September 30, 2016 at 12:56 pm

    from that foul carcass and suddenly rediscover their “principles.”

    So, whats Rubio’s stand now that its come out that Trump violated the Cuban embargo?

  28. 28.

    Wapiti

    September 30, 2016 at 12:56 pm

    @MJS: The campaign seems to be using her/her issue as a surrogate to Spanish language media. Smart!

  29. 29.

    Florida Frog

    September 30, 2016 at 12:57 pm

    I can’t tell if Trump has a functioning ground game here or not. He’s got volunteers canvassing aggressively. Of course everyone I know who was canvassed last week was a Democrat so maybe his folks don’t know how to make a walk list that targets the right people. Still, so far as I know, McCain and Romney didn’t field any canvassers around here at all. So, does Trump have so many volunteers that they can blanket the entire county or are they a few dozen self-directed idiots?

  30. 30.

    JCJ

    September 30, 2016 at 12:58 pm

    @Booger:

    Machado about nothing.

    Well done. Will some Shakespeare organization be staging a production of this sometime?

  31. 31.

    hovercraft

    September 30, 2016 at 12:59 pm

    @Wapiti:
    Overnight after the debate they released an Ad in Spanish featuring Merchado.

  32. 32.

    Prescott Cactus

    September 30, 2016 at 12:59 pm

    @Betty Cracker: Not sure if it’s the same ad, but the city of Phoenix is going to court to have a second portion removed that contains 3 PHX police officers in a montage.

    Phoenix City Attorney Brad Holm said in the letter that those cops are Phoenix police officers, who “were unaware that they were photographed and videotaped, and they did not consent to the use of their on-duty images in any Trump (or other) campaign advertisement.”

  33. 33.

    Mike J

    September 30, 2016 at 1:01 pm

    Futurama fans should be sure to check out Billy West’s twitter feed. He’s putting up Trump quotes read in the voice of Zap Brannigan.

  34. 34.

    bemused

    September 30, 2016 at 1:02 pm

    So Chicago Tribune editorial actually endorses the burnout flake Johnson. Do they have a comment section for editorials other than letters to the ed section? I’m curious to see how their readers are reacting.

  35. 35.

    fuddmain

    September 30, 2016 at 1:03 pm

    @Florida Frog: Last I heard he had 1 field office in Florida, so self-directed idiots seems likely.

  36. 36.

    catclub

    September 30, 2016 at 1:05 pm

    @fuddmain:

    I also like to imagine many of Trump’s supporter are so stupid they probably aren’t registered to vote, don’t know what day the election is, don’t know where their polling place is, and couldn’t find it if they did.

    There is evidence that although Trump is exciting non-college educated whites, there is little indication that they are registering in large numbers to vote.

    I am somewhat worried they will bring their guns to demand to vote on election day.

  37. 37.

    hovercraft

    September 30, 2016 at 1:05 pm

    @Florida Frog:
    Yesterday Mark Halpern was saying that the RNC feeling burned by the Obama ground game in 2012 has been working on this for four years. They had expected to work in combination with the presidential campaign, but since Trump doesn’t have one, they are doing it all. So basically there is a ground game, not as good as Hillary’s but don’t take for granted that just because she has a robust and vigorous operation that he’s got nothing. Now this was all from Mr Good News for John McCain, take it with a very large grain of salt.

  38. 38.

    MJS

    September 30, 2016 at 1:06 pm

    @Wapiti: Agreed. Clinton and her team have run a very smart campaign. But for the media’s attempt to assist Trump in any way possible (email, pneumonia, foundation nonsense, etc.), I think we’d be looking at a staggering electoral college blowout (not Reagan v. Mondale level, but something beyond Obama’s two victories). Who knows, maybe we get there in the next five weeks.

  39. 39.

    scav

    September 30, 2016 at 1:06 pm

    @JCJ: She could also star in The Merchado of Venice, so maybe even a complete season?

  40. 40.

    prufrock

    September 30, 2016 at 1:07 pm

    @Betty Cracker: I’ve seen that one in my part of Tampa Bay too (Largo). Lame.

    Speaking of political ads, I don’t think I’ve seen the Clinton campaign run a negative ad of Trump that didn’t do anything beyond quote him with his own voice. It’s brilliant.

  41. 41.

    James E Powell

    September 30, 2016 at 1:10 pm

    Nobody’s got anything good to say about Trump. It’s all Hillary Hate or Both Sides Suck!

  42. 42.

    catclub

    September 30, 2016 at 1:11 pm

    The NYT article that had seven unidentified sources in the Trump campaign was delicious.

    They want to get their story told, just in case, that it was not THEIR fault. Blaming others is always a good sign of personal responsibility.

  43. 43.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    September 30, 2016 at 1:12 pm

    @NR:

    I normally would completely ignore you, but I just need to ask – wouldn’t Nevada be a perfect place for Bernie’s “revolution” to go to work, with pot on the ballot and an open Senate seat? It seems to me that a good place to start a revolution with Bernie at the helm would be to help give him a Democratic Senate where he would have a lot of leverage with Hillary to push his “revolution”.

  44. 44.

    hovercraft

    September 30, 2016 at 1:13 pm

    They don’t seem to want to stop digging, this is great. What do you think the number one topic will be on the Sunday shows ? From TPM

    “This is the new Benghazi lie,” he said in an interview on conservative radio host Sean Hannity’s show, as flagged by Buzzfeed.

    “It was as false as her claim she was under fire in Bosnia. It was as false as the lies she told about her emails,” he added, sparing no political metaphor in his criticism of Clinton. “As happened in Ferguson, as happened in Benghazi, as happened in Bosnia, it’s all starting to fall apart because it’s based on a series of falsehoods.”

  45. 45.

    Major Major Major Major

    September 30, 2016 at 1:14 pm

    You leave Planet Reptar out of this.

  46. 46.

    sukabi

    September 30, 2016 at 1:14 pm

    @prufrock: those are the Clinton ads I’ve seen here… taking the words literally out of drumpfs mouth…and yes, devastating.

  47. 47.

    different-church-lady

    September 30, 2016 at 1:15 pm

    @Betty Cracker: I’ve seen that one — those people look unhinged. It like if you were a football team you wouldn’t want them in your commercials.

  48. 48.

    hovercraft

    September 30, 2016 at 1:16 pm

    @catclub:
    The talking heads all said that when you see leaks like that, they are speaking to Trump not the rest of us. Apparently when he won’t listen and is doing real harm, they have to resort to leaking to get through to him.

  49. 49.

    different-church-lady

    September 30, 2016 at 1:16 pm

    @sukabi: Trump’s ads use Trump soundbites. Clinton’s ads use Trump soundbites. BOTH SIDES DO IT!!!!

  50. 50.

    pamelabrown53

    September 30, 2016 at 1:17 pm

    @fuddmain: #33
    Florida resident here (northeast coast). We have a self-directed Trump idiot who has set up one of those 4 post covered beach shade thingies on a strip of land between our roundabout and Publix. Has a bunch of signs around his “stand” and t-shirts hanging from the horizontal supports. Other than this 1 guy and 1 yard sign, I’ve seen no other visual support of Trump.

    very unusual in this area. Haven’t even seen any Rubio signs or bumper stickers. Hopefully this means many are too dispirited to vote.

  51. 51.

    dmsilev

    September 30, 2016 at 1:18 pm

    @Keith P.:

    “What the hell is going on in this man’s head? 3am tweet about a sex tape???!??”

    Presumably it means he’s up all night watching porn.

  52. 52.

    different-church-lady

    September 30, 2016 at 1:19 pm

    @MJS: Don’t feel too bad, that’s what my eyes told me it said as well.

  53. 53.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    September 30, 2016 at 1:19 pm

    @NR: They also had the Republican up 3 in the Senate race with lots of undecideds, so it’s not all good news unfortunately.

    Have you figured out how that’s Hillary’s fault, Dummy?

    @the Conster, la Citoyenne: Iowa, New Hampshire… the Revolution is being failed all over the place

  54. 54.

    Kenneth Kohl

    September 30, 2016 at 1:19 pm

    @Keith P.: well, we now know what he thinks about a 3:00 am

  55. 55.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    September 30, 2016 at 1:19 pm

    Jefferson County, Colorado is also an extremely important electoral get for Trump, and it’s being organized by a 12 year old. Not an operative for 12 years, an actual 12 year old, who insists he knows what he’s doing. You can’t make this shit up.

  56. 56.

    hovercraft

    September 30, 2016 at 1:20 pm

    From TPM

    Newsweek Website Attacked After Report On Trump, Cuban Embargo
    “Last night we were on the receiving end of what our IT chief called a ‘massive’ DoS (denial of service) attack,” Impoco wrote in an email to TPM. “The site was down most of last evening, at a time when Kurt Eichenwald’s story detailing how Donald Trump’s company broke the law by violating the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba was being covered extensively by prominent cable news programs. Our IT team is still investigating the hack.”

  57. 57.

    Srv

    September 30, 2016 at 1:20 pm

    Waiting on mom to get back with my lunch. I thought I might as well soil this thread with my authentic frontier gibberish.

  58. 58.

    different-church-lady

    September 30, 2016 at 1:21 pm

    @hovercraft: My guess is they’re more interested in protecting the down-ballot candidates. And probably pissed they’re getting no help from the presidential campaign.

  59. 59.

    amk

    September 30, 2016 at 1:23 pm

    @the Conster, la Citoyenne: what, you mean to say all that whining/bitching & moaning/hot air doesn’t bring the revolution?

  60. 60.

    Fair Economist

    September 30, 2016 at 1:23 pm

    @Keith P.:

    That sex tape tweet is causing Trump to get absolutely slaughtered this morning. On the news and on the Internets, it’s a big collective “What the hell is going on in this man’s head? 3am tweet about a sex tape???!??”

    The most amazing thing is that it’s a 3AM tweet about the WRONG sex tape. (Actually there is no right one, but this is wrong.) I find it interesting that the sex tape he’s referring to is a parody porn of his own show.

  61. 61.

    ? Martin

    September 30, 2016 at 1:23 pm

    The rats haven’t really started to run yet. That moment stands out clear as day when staffer names start being attributed to leaks from the campaign as they try and salvage their image for the next campaign job. Then it all comes out in a rush because the staffers realize that whoever doesn’t get their name mentioned in Politico is going to be left holding the bag when the media autopsy is done.

  62. 62.

    scav

    September 30, 2016 at 1:23 pm

    OT, just to vary the diet and not succumb to tunnelvision. Justice Roy Moore Suspended For Attempts To Block Gay Marriage

    For real sidetrip, Bronze age pressed flower.

  63. 63.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    September 30, 2016 at 1:23 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Iowa, New Hampshire… the Revolution is being failed all over the place

    Don’t get me started. I’m trying to correct my BJ emotional index chart, which over-represents comments from January through late July.

  64. 64.

    Villago Delenda Est

    September 30, 2016 at 1:24 pm

    You know, just when you think the Drumpf campaign has finally hit the bottom of the Marianas Trench, you get a report back that there are still miles to go.

  65. 65.

    Mike J

    September 30, 2016 at 1:24 pm

    Keep your foot on the gas. 38 days to go.

    Mark Murray Verified account @mmurraypolitics
    4 battleground polls from today (all conducted after the debate):
    FL: Clinton +4
    MI: Clinton +7
    NV: Clinton +6
    NH: Clinton +7

  66. 66.

    Villago Delenda Est

    September 30, 2016 at 1:25 pm

    @Srv: The common clay of the New West!

  67. 67.

    Immanentize

    September 30, 2016 at 1:26 pm

    @Fair Economist: I think Hillary needs to do a brand new version of the famous 3 a.m. phone call commercial, but this time it’s about hookers and blow.

  68. 68.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    September 30, 2016 at 1:26 pm

    @amk:

    It’s so much easier to say it was unfair, rigged, and stolen – wait, that’s just like Trump!

  69. 69.

    Iowa Old Lady

    September 30, 2016 at 1:26 pm

    @hovercraft: The GOP has a ground game in Iowa. Yesterday we got a letter from the R governor saying we’d get an absentee ballot request in the mail in the next few days. It’s possible the same letter went to all registered voters. It’s also possible it came only to us because we live in an R neighborhood. The local paper also had an article about R canvassers going door to door. As you say, it appears to be state party run.

  70. 70.

    Florida Frog

    September 30, 2016 at 1:26 pm

    @hovercraft: Oh, he’s definitely got something going on here. He has a few dozen people in orange jumpsuits with bullhorns on the major shopping corner in town every Saturday and darn near every oversized pickup truck has a Trump sticker that says “its a white thing- you wouldn’t understand”. The upside of that horror show is the number of first time volunteers coming to the dem field office to phone bank and canvass.

  71. 71.

    Betty Cracker

    September 30, 2016 at 1:26 pm

    @pamelabrown53: I’ve mentioned a similar bit of anecdata for my conservative little town on the west coast of the state. In past years, there have been tons of GOP presidential and senate signs. So far, there is only one house that sports a Trump sign (also has a truck in the driveway with a giant Confederate flag on the back, so we already knew they were assholes). I think we were the only people with Obama signs in 2008 and 2012, and we felt way outnumbered. Not this year!

    Now, in my travels up to the northwestern coast and interior, I’ve seen plenty of Trump signs and also “Hillary for Prison” banners. But that’s to be expected. The people in my town are slightly more upscale. I think they’re ashamed of Combover Caligula.

  72. 72.

    clay

    September 30, 2016 at 1:27 pm

    “Other party hacks who’ve fastened themselves to Trump like remoras on a bloated orange shark will detach their lips from that foul carcass and suddenly rediscover their “principles.””

    Which is why Ted Cruz, whiz kid that he is, picked the absolute dumbest time to endorse Trump. Way too late to mean anything, and right before Trump self-immolated before 80 million viewers.

    Anyway, I live in Jacksonville, and I’ve seen plenty of Clinton ads — both ones that present a positive view of her, and the ones that use Trump’s words against him. But, disturbingly, the only Senate ads I’ve seen are anti-Patrick Murphy. (I’ve seen none that are pro-Rubio.)

    Is Murphy running any ads at all? I also can’t recall him visiting our area… what the heck is he doing?

  73. 73.

    Villago Delenda Est

    September 30, 2016 at 1:27 pm

    @hovercraft: St. Petersburg? (Not the one in Florida, silly!) Moscow? Volgograd? Perm? Vladivostok? Multnohmah County Jail? Mar A Lago?

  74. 74.

    RaflW

    September 30, 2016 at 1:27 pm

    “It is clear the campaign is now going in a direction I am no longer comfortable with”

    Now? Now!?!

    Jeepers, it’s been a racist, woman-disparaging shitshow for … welll … its entirety.

  75. 75.

    Betty Cracker

    September 30, 2016 at 1:28 pm

    @Florida Frog: “It’s a white thing” — seriously? Goddamn. I haven’t seen that.

  76. 76.

    jl

    September 30, 2016 at 1:29 pm

    Looks like Trump sees the ‘The Machado’ as a major issue, right up there with the ‘The Nuclear’ and ‘Thy Cyber’ that is very important, top importance, that needs endless discussion.

    At times, as a person who tries to maintain some contact with reality, I am overcome with great unease that it looks like the election will hinge on ‘The Machado’ and similar issues, rather than policy. But the Republic is under grave threat, and whatever it takes.

    After ‘The Machado’ dies down, HRC can slip in a phrase that contains some diss about the famous Trump/Busey intervention (the nature of which I still only vaguely understand), and we will move on the ‘The Buisey’ as a major issue.

  77. 77.

    Kenneth Kohl

    September 30, 2016 at 1:29 pm

    So, Hillary ‘coughed’? No big deal… let me know when she ‘sniffles’, then I’ll worry ;)

    Side note; in our nice 2nd ring neighborhood of Buffalo I noticed 3 Trump yard signs during Primary season. After the conventions, they were taken down.

  78. 78.

    Timurid

    September 30, 2016 at 1:29 pm

    @scav:

    60 pounds of flesh? Ouch.

  79. 79.

    PaulWartenberg2016

    September 30, 2016 at 1:30 pm

    The Trump campaign has leased out a large building in Lakeland just south of downtown, and there’s some activity there. But it’s bigger than most campaign HQs I’ve seen before, and I get the feeling they rented it only because of its size (cough overcompensating cough)

    There are a handful of houses with Trump signage, but it’s still a bit early (it gets worse the week before Halloween) But in terms of seeing canvassers, not a lot.

  80. 80.

    Betty Cracker

    September 30, 2016 at 1:30 pm

    @clay: He’s running some ads in the Tampa Bay market, but I see more Super PAC ads against him than pro-Murphy ads. Looks like the Kochs have poured money into this race. Still, Murphy is within striking distance. If Trump flames out badly over the next several weeks, we might get lucky and oust Marcolito too, which will be cause for great rejoicing.

  81. 81.

    Villago Delenda Est

    September 30, 2016 at 1:30 pm

    @different-church-lady: You made me snort coffee AND startle the cat. For shame!

  82. 82.

    Elizabelle

    September 30, 2016 at 1:31 pm

    And how is No Labels taking this, you might ask? (Or not …)

    Former Utah governor and 2012 Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman Jr. says he’ll be voting for GOP nominee Donald Trump even though he disagrees with him on a “range of issues.”

    Huntsman, who said in April it was time to end the GOP infighting and rally around Trump, has been relatively quiet since Trump gained the nomination and hadn’t weighed in as the race tightened with Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, his one-time boss at the State Department. The former governor says a “perfect choice” doesn’t exist, and he’s motivated to back Trump because he will take on the Washington establishment.

    “Notwithstanding our highly flawed presidential primary process, desperately in need of reform, we still have a choice — Clinton/Trump,” Huntsman said in an email. “No third-party option is remotely viable.”

    Voters have to “deal with the hand dealt us by history,” Huntsman said, so he’s voting for Trump. But he adds that this election has shown how badly reform is needed so that future races actually deal with America’s problems instead of personality-driven fights.

    “My biggest lament is the loss of any real debate on issues that matter most to people — replaced altogether by cheap shots, insults and our new fact-free operating environment,” Huntsman said. “One can only hope that this doesn’t become our new normal in politics.”

    [So he’s voting for Trump. Yesh …]

    … For the past several years, Huntsman has been co-chairman of No Labels, a nonprofit group that aims to cut through the partisan fights and forge coalitions to solve the country’s pressing issues provide a microphone for Republicans ashamed to call themselves such. The other co-chairman is former Sen. Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut Democrat who left the party to run as an independent.

    Has Joe Lieberman endorsed anyone yet?

  83. 83.

    ET

    September 30, 2016 at 1:31 pm

    @Florida Frog: I am going with the self directed idiots. Trump thinks that the force of his personality with a little bullying will be enough.

  84. 84.

    Major Major Major Major

    September 30, 2016 at 1:32 pm

    @Florida Frog:

    “its a white thing- you wouldn’t understand”

    Oh. my. god.

  85. 85.

    Stillwater

    September 30, 2016 at 1:32 pm

    So, Trump won’t allocate any cash to his Florida operation? My guess is that if he owned a sign company in Florida – Trump Signs! – more-than-enough cash would have already arrived.

    Add: in fact, if he were the businessman he claims to be he wouldn’t have missed so many campaign-related business opportunities. SAD!

  86. 86.

    jl

    September 30, 2016 at 1:32 pm

    @RaflW: Might be some internal polling for the FL Trump campaign that shows signs Trump is going in the direction of clear loser in way that cannot be salvaged in time for election day.. I hope so. That would be a new direction that would get the campaign hacks’ attention.

  87. 87.

    amk

    September 30, 2016 at 1:33 pm

    the brilliant (supposedly) ted crud must be ruing the timing of his kickass endorsement of the donnie dick.

  88. 88.

    different-church-lady

    September 30, 2016 at 1:34 pm

    So the question is: who else can Clinton get Trump to attack in the next 5 weeks? An astronaut? A kindergarten teacher? A nun in a wheelchair? She’s gotta keep this going, 38 days is an eternity.

  89. 89.

    RaflW

    September 30, 2016 at 1:34 pm

    party hacks who’ve fastened themselves to Trump like remoras on a bloated orange shark will detach their lips from that foul carcass and suddenly rediscover their “principles.”

    Meanwhile, Paul Ryan will stoically soldier on, sucker firmly attached but hoping no one notices. Many of us have known Ryan is a moral lamprey eel, but maybe the general public will finally discover it.

  90. 90.

    Villago Delenda Est

    September 30, 2016 at 1:35 pm

    @hueyplong: Well, that’s just an absolutely outrageous assertion on your part. I mean, I can’t think for the life of me any time that Drumpf has not behaved in a Lannister-like fashion and failed to pay his debts…

  91. 91.

    RaflW

    September 30, 2016 at 1:35 pm

    @jl: I suppose a shift from trending downward to precipitous plunge would be something new. And welcome!

  92. 92.

    catclub

    September 30, 2016 at 1:36 pm

    @hovercraft:

    As happened in Ferguson,

    I think this is right wing nut jobs expression that ferguson was a made up crisis. It is shorthand. Only those paying very close attention,
    notice it.

  93. 93.

    Barbara

    September 30, 2016 at 1:36 pm

    @Florida Frog: @Betty Cracker: “It’s a white thing” — and here I thought “Trump that Bitch” was odious. I think I can never be surprised any more by how low things can go and I find that my imagination is insufficient.

  94. 94.

    James E Powell

    September 30, 2016 at 1:37 pm

    Trump’s next PPP (possible pivot point, a press/media obsession) is Tuesday when the supposedly normal Republican Pence goes up against Tim Kaine.

    What do we know about either of these two in the debate format?

    I have to believe that the Trump campaign has to find a way for Pence to come out with a press/media declared “win” but how can they do that with a guy like Pence?

    Is Kaine’s plan to attack Pence with Trump or does he go right at Pence with Pence’s own history of RW extreme?

  95. 95.

    Villago Delenda Est

    September 30, 2016 at 1:38 pm

    @catclub: Well, apparently all the kids that “died” in Sandy Hook are living somewhere on the witness protection program.

  96. 96.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    September 30, 2016 at 1:38 pm

    How seriously does the Talk Radio Right take the tragedy of four Americans killed in Benghazi? This seriously

    In a Thursday interview, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich slammed Hillary Clinton’s resurfacing of Donald Trump’s comments about a former Miss Universe as “an ambush that was as false as Benghazi.”
    “This is the new Benghazi lie,” he said in an interview on conservative radio host Sean Hannity’s show, as flagged by Buzzfeed.

  97. 97.

    Mike J

    September 30, 2016 at 1:38 pm

    @Major Major Major Major: It’s amazing seeing white folks upset at a 25 year old meme.

  98. 98.

    Villago Delenda Est

    September 30, 2016 at 1:39 pm

    @James E Powell: Kaine is going to be like a cat playing with a mouse.

  99. 99.

    Barbara

    September 30, 2016 at 1:39 pm

    @PaulWartenberg2016: I have to think rent in Lakeland is fairly cheap. Just based on my own limited experience staying in Lakeland a few years ago. It’s funny that when I asked at the hotel about things to see they just shrugged their shoulders, and it turns out that a college located in Lakeland has the biggest concentration of Frank Lloyd Wright designed buildings of anywhere in the world. Which I learned when I went to Legoland later with my kid. Sorry, totally OT.

  100. 100.

    Calouste

    September 30, 2016 at 1:46 pm

    @RaflW:

    “It is clear the campaign is now going in a direction I am no longer comfortable with”

    Iow, the check bounced.

  101. 101.

    manyakitty

    September 30, 2016 at 1:46 pm

    @Betty Cracker: My parents and I went to Venice (FL) to meet some friends for lunch, and got accosted by some of the morons. We flipped them off and kept going.

  102. 102.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    September 30, 2016 at 1:46 pm

    @different-church-lady:

    Obama will make it his job in the next month to get under Donald’s skin. The tightening in the polls reversed the day of the hotel birther press conference fiasco. Birtherism is Donald’s Achilles Heel, which he keeps pointing to and telling everyone all the time “hey look at my great Achilles Heel here – it’s very great, I’m very proud of it”.

  103. 103.

    Florida Frog

    September 30, 2016 at 1:47 pm

    @ET: The bullying is a big part of his attraction here. Every couple of days an older white man walks into the field office and yells about getting a democratic flyer that sullied his Republican mailbox. Right after the debate another walked in to cackle about how Trump destroyed Hillary. “The Wall St. Journal says so! Cry, little girls, cry”. We have taken to walking them out the door and locking it. The cops have been good are patrolling near the office more often. We know that they aren’t dangerous but boy is it getting old.

  104. 104.

    Betty Cracker

    September 30, 2016 at 1:47 pm

    @James E Powell: I’m going to be off the grid so will have to miss that debate, damn it all. But I expect Kaine to very affably disembowel the moron Pence.

  105. 105.

    pamelabrown53

    September 30, 2016 at 1:48 pm

    @jl: #74

    We have long passed the point of regular issues. The only issue on the ballot is decent vs. indecent.

  106. 106.

    ? Martin

    September 30, 2016 at 1:48 pm

    @James E Powell: I think Kaine will have an easy time. If Pence is smart (I know… but he does take instructions fairly well from smart people) he’ll try and keep the debate on policy grounds between the two parties rather than trying to litigate Clinton. Kaine is such a natural contrast to Trump compared to Pence/Clinton that Pence really doesn’t stand a chance in that kind of match. And if it is about policy, Kaine should easily hold his own as well.

    Kaine’s biggest lever with the electorate is presenting the position that you can be a person of faith without having to legislate that position over people who don’t share your faith. If he can get that point across, it’ll go a long way toward helping them with some Sanders supporters.

  107. 107.

    jl

    September 30, 2016 at 1:48 pm

    @James E Powell: Kaine is informed, smart, funny and articulate. ‘Many say’ that Pence provides a stark contrast. Main problem is that both are more connected to reality (Pence rather vaguely, but in a way that resonates with many voters) than Trump, and actual policy issues may play a greater role in the debate, so not sure whether it will merit much attention in the media.

    Seems like election will hinge on ‘The Machado’, the very important (to Trumpers) policy issues of fat mouthy uppity broads (who are disasters, lemmy tell, you, total disasters, with many problems and we men get blamed for helping them with insults and humiliation), and wives who are guilty of their husband’s cheating affairs.

  108. 108.

    LAO

    September 30, 2016 at 1:49 pm

    For those that may be interested, Buzzfeed has Trump’s video deposition and transcript taken in June 2016 regarding his suit against the restaurant that pulled out of the DC hotel.

  109. 109.

    Major Major Major Major

    September 30, 2016 at 1:49 pm

    @Mike J: I believe I’ve heard of it before, now that you mention it.

  110. 110.

    Immanentize

    September 30, 2016 at 1:51 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est: Pence really is a not-smart fellow. Kaine is a smart fellow. But Pence is not insane, so maybe the media wil award him a “win.”

    P.S. Tim Kaine is Catholic and very involved in Catholic social justice theology whereas Pence in a full blown Christianist. That should provoke some great discussions.

  111. 111.

    ? Martin

    September 30, 2016 at 1:52 pm

    And in SoCal news, I’ve still yet to see a Trump bumper sticker or yard sign. A decent number of Clinton ones. Some Sanders still around, and some Romney ones, but nothing GOP from this election at all. There’s no Republican in our Senate race, so nothing even there to fall back to.

  112. 112.

    Brachiator

    September 30, 2016 at 1:53 pm

    @James E Powell:

    Trump’s next PPP (possible pivot point, a press/media obsession) is Tuesday when the supposedly normal Republican Pence goes up against Tim Kaine.

    Despite the unexpected fun of the presidential debate, I confess that I’m not all that interested in the VP debate. I guess I should give myself an opportunity to learn more about Kaine, but the entire thing seems like it will be about as exiting as a dental appointment.

    I expect nothing from Pence. Nothing. And he has shown himself to be as broken down as any other Trump surrogate who must buy into his candidate’s lies and obsessions.

    Given all the false concerns over the age and health of the candidates, I expect a question about what the VP candidates might do if they end up as president.

  113. 113.

    amk

    September 30, 2016 at 1:56 pm

    Sam Biddle ‏@samfbiddle 4h4 hours ago

    if someone isn’t trying to get a comment from Thiel his candidate inviting public to view an unpublished sex tape, you’re dropping the ball

  114. 114.

    jl

    September 30, 2016 at 1:58 pm

    @pamelabrown53: I agree with Trump, it is out in the open. But not for broader battles in the future, and down ticket this election, with the GOP (which threatens to spring more Trumpism and more Trumps in the future and right now down ticket) that wraps the indecency in prettier packages.

    At some point, we need a clear win on issues. Though I am a realist and understand confronting Trump and Trumpists with reality based issues is challange, the two things seem to be skew lines. As I said, whatever it takes to save the country wrt to presidential election.

  115. 115.

    hovercraft

    September 30, 2016 at 1:59 pm

    @amk:
    Cruz was in trouble for 2018, and even more for 2020, the Mercer family who are responsible for Conway and the Brietbart guy, were behind Cruz’s biggest super pac. He already pissed of all of DC, the Texas GOP also hates him, and the money people were all pissed off at him over the convention speech, so he had to fall in line at some point.

  116. 116.

    Bill Arnold

    September 30, 2016 at 2:01 pm

    Betty Cracker at OP, you’ve been on a magnificent tear with the creative invective of late. Just commenting to say that it’s appreciated.

  117. 117.

    jl

    September 30, 2016 at 2:02 pm

    @hovercraft: So, Cruz is like a rat stuck in an air bubble down in a hold in a sinking ship (politically speaking)? I hope so.

  118. 118.

    Gravenstone

    September 30, 2016 at 2:03 pm

    @Fair Economist: As someone noted in an earlier thread, that’s probably why he’s so pissed – he didn’t get a cut of the profits since it was patterned on his show.

  119. 119.

    hovercraft

    September 30, 2016 at 2:04 pm

    @catclub:
    It’s their excuse for disregarding the entire BLM movement. Since it was “proved” that Michael Brown did not have his hands up, the entire movement is bogus. The fact that there have since been several subsequent murderers caught on tape doesn’t matter, there is no legitimate cause.

  120. 120.

    scav

    September 30, 2016 at 2:05 pm

    @the Conster, la Citoyenne: There’s also room for others — Elizabeth Warren springs to mind — to go after him more on his business and related twitchy spot. I’d personally go after the treatment of staff and stiffing suppliers (at least three plus easy targets) as it jars with his hero of the working class persona and that’s easily tied to his not having enough money to pay them (which is more likely to get him to pick up the rake and start beating his face with it). There’s also room to tie him firmly to the Leona Helmsley Taxes are for Little People Elite plus the wedges to drive under Mr Little Crackers Christian and his posse of adulteress throwing stones and those of his base with buried remnants of sunday school teaching. It’s almost like being in a garden supply center with an unlimited budged during a going-out-of-business sale.

  121. 121.

    StringOnAStick

    September 30, 2016 at 2:08 pm

    @the Conster, la Citoyenne: I live in Jefferson County, and I and my neighbor were heavily involved in the recalling of 3 tea party/Koch supported loons from the school board last year. We won by 67%. That group of woke and active people still exists and is working hard on a statewide initiative for increased school funding. I don’t think Jeffco is as close as the media makes it out to be.

  122. 122.

    Soylent Green

    September 30, 2016 at 2:10 pm

    @ Martin: In a deep blue or deep red state, why bother to sport a yard sign or bumper sticker when you know your state is already in the bag?

    On the other hand, if I lived in a swing state, I would be unwilling to go public as a Clinton supporter lest some Trumpoid asshole vandalize my property.

  123. 123.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    September 30, 2016 at 2:11 pm

    @hovercraft: the Mercer family who are responsible for Conway

    ah, I was wondering how she got from the August last minute call list at Fox to managing the GOP presidential campaign.

  124. 124.

    hovercraft

    September 30, 2016 at 2:11 pm

    @jl:
    Yes, it seems making everyone who’s ever met you hate you, is not the best way to have a successful career. Obviously him being a Texan ,his biggest challenge in the midterms will be the primary. That;s why he did this. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.

  125. 125.

    Villago Delenda Est

    September 30, 2016 at 2:11 pm

    @scav: The rakes. It’s always the rakes.

  126. 126.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    September 30, 2016 at 2:13 pm

    @StringOnAStick:

    I don’t think Jeffco is as close as the media makes it out to be.

    This is my shocked face.

  127. 127.

    Villago Delenda Est

    September 30, 2016 at 2:15 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: The Mercer family is the principle financial backer of Art Robinson’s Don Quixote like runs at Peter DeFazio in Oregon, as DeFazio is the guy who wants to impose a transaction tax on stock trades, which would cost the parasitic Mercers bigly.

  128. 128.

    jl

    September 30, 2016 at 2:15 pm

    It is weird to read how the Machado flap was the result of a ‘carefully laid’, or ‘carefully planned’ (or similar wording) trap by HRC.

    If Trump was even half sane he could have buried that bait in less than a minute with an apology and a reflection on how he has learned lessons in life and would do things differently now.

    Like I said, HRC could ‘carefully lay’ another dangerous trap by putting in any kind of random and brief attack on the Trump/Busey affair, and Trump would get unhinged on that, and ‘The Busey’ would take us into mid-October. Jeebus, what a loon this Trump is.

    The GOP has to answer for producing this mess. And it wrecked Huntsman. Probably for the good, since now we know he cannot be trusted.

  129. 129.

    Villago Delenda Est

    September 30, 2016 at 2:18 pm

    @jl: Huntsman was probably their last chance to ever win the White House back, and they’ve tainted him forever.

  130. 130.

    jl

    September 30, 2016 at 2:19 pm

    @hovercraft: Cruz will be OK, He’ll do well as a TV preacher. I don’t wish personal destruction on anyone. In a perfect world, he could find a decent, but completely obscure, living at an honest job that does not rely on fleecing innocent dupes. But that may be beyond him. As Jesus said in one of his parables, he cannot dig nor (honestly) beg, so what is he to do?

  131. 131.

    hovercraft

    September 30, 2016 at 2:20 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:
    She was very critical of Trump during the primaries, she ran the largest Cruz pac, financed by the Mercer’s. Breitbart is funded by them too . So in the end when the money said get on board they did, and so did Trump, he needed the money. For the Mercer’s it’s all about the money, taxes and regulations. And of course Clinton hatred, they’ve been financing David Bossie (Citizens United) for years.

    WASHINGTON (CNN) —Rebekah Mercer, the Republican mega-donor who has amassed enormous influence behind the scenes of the Donald Trump’s campaign, is taking over day-to-day control of a super PAC, the organization said Wednesday.

    Despite having no formal political experience, Mercer, the daughter of New York hedge funder Bob Mercer, is effectively replacing David Bossie as the head of Make America Number 1 PAC, a group her family has gifted millions of dollars in order to savage Hillary Clinton. Bossie left the group last week to formally join Trump’s campaign.

    Mercer has long run in elite New York political finance circles and her family is known for their tight control over how their donations are spent. But she has never before worked on a political campaign, and she will now be the president of what is aspiring to be one of the leading anti-Clinton PACs during the general election homestretch.

    Mercer’s elevation from the group’s lead donor to lead operative is another sign of her family’s power in Trump’s orbit. The Republican nominee’s senior staff is now stocked with Mercer loyalists, including Bossie, campaign manager Kellyanne Conway and former Breitbart News chairman Steve Bannon.

    “Rebekah Mercer has always been chair of the PAC and the driving force behind its activities,” said Hogan Gidley, the group’s communications director. “Rebekah has taken a more active role in its day to day management.”

    Despite initial promise, the PAC — which runs only anti-Clinton spots, not pro-Trump ones — has struggled to collect major donors beyond the Mercer family. The group originally backed Ted Cruz in the Republican primary, before being repurposed in the general election as an anti-Clinton group.

  132. 132.

    Gelfling 545

    September 30, 2016 at 2:20 pm

    @RaflW: The direction she meant was towards defeat. No one with any basic decency is actually working on the campaign. She just doesn’t wast to get tagged with the L word.

  133. 133.

    Origuy

    September 30, 2016 at 2:21 pm

    The San Diego Union-Tribune endorsed Hillary.

    This paper has not endorsed a Democrat for president in its 148-year history. But we endorse Clinton. She’s the safe choice for the U.S. and for the world, for Democrats and Republicans alike.

  134. 134.

    hovercraft

    September 30, 2016 at 2:23 pm

    @jl:
    But his father said he the “chosen one”, how can he fail to ascend to be the great leader he is destined to be?

  135. 135.

    Calouste

    September 30, 2016 at 2:23 pm

    @jl:

    f Trump was even half sane

    Not half, not a quarter, not an eight… Trump can not apologize for anything ever. The closest he got was when his campaign forced him to do the birther “apology”, and he had to squeeze it in between two lies to make himself look good.

  136. 136.

    jl

    September 30, 2016 at 2:23 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est: Maybe we can pass a constitutional amendment that the GOP has to run Romney until he passes away. Romney would of course be a disaster in the unlikely case he actually won an election, but of routine kind we could probably survive. Mitt would make for a passable pastiche reincarnation of Harold Stassen, I think, though, from what I have read, that Stassen was actually more enlightened and progressive than Romney.

  137. 137.

    Uncle Cosmo

    September 30, 2016 at 2:25 pm

    @Soylent Green: Even in the deepest blue state there are pockets of knuckledragging mouthbreathers who’d toss a rock through your windshield or picture window & lurch away giggling about it. Fat chance catching them, much less get restitution for the property damage. Why risk the hassle? Better to GOTV anonymously.

  138. 138.

    Anoniminous

    September 30, 2016 at 2:25 pm

    I don’t believe the “tightening in the polls” shtick. It’s the Same Old HORSE! RACE! nonsense we saw in ’08 and ’12. Clinton is +15-18 with women, 50/50 with college educated men, POC should be around 30% of total electorate, the GOP vote is concentrated in the South and low populated rural areas, and the hard-core Obama white vote of 39% will vote Clinton.

    Trump will not do as well as Romney’s 47.2%, I’m think he’ll be luck to get 42 or 43 percent nationally which works out to under 200 ECVs.

  139. 139.

    Villago Delenda Est

    September 30, 2016 at 2:27 pm

    @jl: Stassen was Governor of Minnesota at a time when the idea of a “liberal Republican” was not ROFL funny.

  140. 140.

    pamelabrown53

    September 30, 2016 at 2:28 pm

    @Betty Cracker: #69

    Your little town sounds similar to mine. Although, I’d label our town seriously upscale: we own, IMHO, a beautiful home. In my town it’s probably the equivalent to a starter!

    Anyway, the organizer living with us was a later hire (@ 2 weeks)! and given the difficult task of penetrating west counties areas. Poor guy. Tomorrow, we’re venturing inland to a Soul Food Festival (in his support and probably some superior festival food) and will report back what I encountered.

  141. 141.

    hovercraft

    September 30, 2016 at 2:28 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est:
    To be fair he tainted himself, he accepted the appointment to be Ambassador to China, by the world’s most corrupt, incompetent, illegitimate, dictator, Obama. Once he did that he no longer had a future in the republican party. Obama’s greatest feat was casting a spell with his election on the GOP. That spell forced them to abandon all policy, and forced them to instead become an insane asylum.

  142. 142.

    Anoniminous

    September 30, 2016 at 2:29 pm

    @jl:

    Clinton campaign could “lay a trap” by calling Donald a poopy-head. The guy is clearly mentally unstable and totally in over his head.

  143. 143.

    jl

    September 30, 2016 at 2:30 pm

    @Anoniminous: There may be some monthly statistical artifact due to the timing of release of different polls. With all the new, and some relatively untested polling methods, some weeks seem to be dominated by very Trump friendly polls.

    Maybe only Sam Wang has the statistics chops to do it as correctly as humanly possible. He is also, by far, the most transparent about his methodology. He is running a damn near an ‘open source’ polling aggregater operation..

  144. 144.

    Pest Bog Mummy, Frakensteinbeck

    September 30, 2016 at 2:33 pm

    @jl:

    election will hinge on ‘The Machado’, the very important (to Trumpers) policy issues of fat mouthy uppity broads

    Yes. This is important not just to Trump, but his supporters. Trump is no accident. It’s not that we got lucky. This is who the Republicans are, and who they demanded. Our government is a mess precisely because the Republican base are batshit crazy racists who have been demanding more and more stridently that America be burned down before the darkies inherit it. Tied inextricably to that, they think that a woman’s place is to look good, lie down, and shut up. They ARE Trump.

    @jl:

    At some point, we need a clear win on issues.

    These are the issues, and have been for at least thirty years. Republicans are running on racism, sexism, and homophobia. We might as well acknowledge that.

  145. 145.

    StringOnAStick

    September 30, 2016 at 2:34 pm

    @Soylent Green: My neighbor and I discussed the lack of Hillary yard signs; not seeing many Trumps either,only one Johnson and that’s in our ‘hood (dude, weeds already legal here – chill). I read somewhere recently that yard signs are the least bang for the buck; people “buy” one and decide they’ve done all they need to do for the campaign, and seriously, does a yard sign change anyone’s mind?

    Personally, I’m afraid of trumpian goons, so the money that would go for a sign and more goes straight to gotv efforts. We’re not home now since we are here being supportive as my BIL is in his last days due to cancer. Thankfully our neighbor is keeping our doorstep cleansed of campaign fliers.

  146. 146.

    Villago Delenda Est

    September 30, 2016 at 2:34 pm

    @hovercraft: Well, there’s taint within the GOP, and taint outside it. Saying he’s going to vote for Drumpf is taint outside, which he is indeed doing to himself. The fact that the GOP lives in mortal fear of the monster they created (the Drumpfenproletariat) is on them, and they sacrificed Huntsman to that monster, in the fashion of outrunning the bear.

  147. 147.

    jl

    September 30, 2016 at 2:34 pm

    I remember Sanders saying in an interview that one of the real emotional investments he had in his campaign was getting a chance to destroy Trump in the debates and campaign. I didn’t believe him then. But now,… yeah… maybe that is what really pissed him off about losing the primary.

  148. 148.

    Anoniminous

    September 30, 2016 at 2:37 pm

    @jl:

    This may interest you: What’s the Matter With Polling?.

    Specifically:

    When I first started doing telephone surveys in New Jersey in the late 1970s, we considered an 80 percent response rate acceptable, and even then we worried if the 20 percent we missed were different in attitudes and behaviors than the 80 percent we got. Enter answering machines and other technologies. By 1997, Pew’s response rate was 36 percent, and the decline has accelerated. By 2014 the response rate had fallen to 8 percent.

    8% response rate is disastrous. With them numbers results are little better than inspecting sheep’s livers and recording the honking of sacred geese.

  149. 149.

    Villago Delenda Est

    September 30, 2016 at 2:37 pm

    @StringOnAStick: I think yard signs are effective for getting your name out there, but at the Presidential level, that shouldn’t be an issue. I learned first hand that name recognition is the single most important thing in politics in high school. Just writing for the school paper, and having a byline, was more than enough to get me elected to the committee that oversaw the disbursement of student funds when before then, I was pretty much a nobody.

  150. 150.

    jl

    September 30, 2016 at 2:37 pm

    @Pest Bog Mummy, Frakensteinbeck: Yes, well, we agree completely on some aspects of the crucial battle against the GOP conpeople, and completely disagree on others.

  151. 151.

    Barbara

    September 30, 2016 at 2:37 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Speaking of Kellyanne Conway, she seems to have gone silent since her effort on Tuesday to congratulate Trump on behalf of all womankind for his restraint in attacking one woman for her husband’s infidelities.

  152. 152.

    ? Martin

    September 30, 2016 at 2:38 pm

    @Anoniminous: Turnout is everything. If you can get more white men voting and millennials are staying home, then you can get by with worse performance among other groups. Pollsters have difficulty modeling changes in turnout – their polling models tend to be tied to historical turnout models, and in wave elections they tend to get caught out badly. It’s possible they’re undermodeling white men. It’s equally possible they’re undermodeling latinos and women.

    Overall I would say the crosstabs are overall quite favorable for Clinton. I’d like to see millennial support more in her column – they really helped carry Obama. But I’m also guessing the turnout models are simply shit right now. My instinct is that Clinton has more upside on the turnout model in places where it’ll matter. She’ll do better in Nevada, Georgia, Texas, North Carolina, Arizona, possibly Florida than expected, and worse in Iowa, Wisconsin, Ohio. We’ll probably see some surprises over the Obama map in places like Iowa, but this is the election that could scare the shit out of the GOP in say, Texas – currently polling Trump +6. If CA was Clinton +6 then we’d be collectively losing our shit and rightly so (it’s Clinton +26 in the last poll).

  153. 153.

    Matt McIrvin

    September 30, 2016 at 2:41 pm

    @? Martin: I have seen zero Clinton yard signs or bumper stickers in my northern Massachusetts town, and several gigantic Trump signs, sometimes accompanied by “Hillary for Prison” and “Vote Trump-A Leader With Balls!”. I have a Clinton sticker that I am, frankly, afraid to put on my car. I know there are other Hillary supporters in this town (maybe even a majority!) and I suspect they are in a similar position.

    When I’m closer in to the city, of course, I see Hillary stickers, though never as many as Bernie stickers during the primary campaign (even though Hillary won the state).

  154. 154.

    Brachiator

    September 30, 2016 at 2:42 pm

    @Origuy:

    The San Diego Union-Tribune endorsed Hillary.

    Another crack in the conservative wall.

    Not even the Beltway pundits can keep insisting that “both” sides are campaigning negatively. Nor can they keep blathering about how both Trump and Clinton have equal unfavorable ratings. The editorial consensus on Trump keeps noting the same troubling patterns and coming to the same conclusion that Trump is unfit to serve.

    Newspaper endorsements may not matter as much, but bitter, hard core Trump supporters are angrily cancelling subscriptions to the Arizona Republic and other papers.

    What happens to the right wing, where do they go, when they cannot consistently go to familiar publications and web sites to get their biases reinforced? What happens to the Republican Party when they find their designated standard bearer so soundly rejected?

  155. 155.

    hovercraft

    September 30, 2016 at 2:45 pm

    Trump Has a Voter-Registration Problem
    By Ed Kilgore
    ……Trump’s path to power is generally described as being paved by white working-class voters, especially men, who are going to emerge from their rust-belt churches and VFW halls and bowling alleys in astonishing numbers and smite the arrogant liberal elites and their underclass clients in a mighty show of yearning for the Great America of an idealized past.

    This idea feeds on what Real Clear Politics’ Sean Trende identified some time ago as the “missing white voters” phenomenon — a decided under-participation of white working-class voters in recent presidential elections. There are enough of these folks, in theory at least, to overwhelm temporarily any accretion to the Democratic ranks of African-Americans, Latinos, and millennial whites. And if they march to the polls for a candidate who embodies their fears and hopes, no quantity of campaign ads or other resources can stop them, as the GOP primaries showed. At least that’s how the argument for an inevitable Trump victory goes.

    But now comes David Wasserman of the Cook Political Report with an analysis that rains heavily on this parade. Even if white working-class voters were disposed to carry Trump on their shoulders to the White House, there’s a problem: not enough of them are registered to vote.

    According to the Census, 40.2 million eligible whites weren’t registered to vote at all in 2012. That’s much larger than the 14.7 million whites who were registered who but didn’t turn out. Therefore, if Trump were truly inspiring an uprising of “missing” whites, we should expect a surge (or at least an uptick) in new registrations in blue-collar white and GOP-leaning places — think a mirror image of the Obama registration boom of 2008.

    But nothing like that has materialized. In the 15 months since Trump announced his run, net registration gains in heavily white, rural and GOP-leaning counties have been unremarkable.

    Is Wasserman maybe looking at the wrong places? How about Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, where Salena Zito found “a bar full of undecideds and Democrats” who watched Monday’s debate and were “won over” by Trump?

    It’s a nice anecdote, but according to Wasserman, the numbers don’t show some emerging Trump majority in the Keystone State:

    Since May 2015, registrations have increased 4.9 percent in the 63 counties where a majority of potential voters are non-college-educated white people. But in the other four counties (Philadelphia, Delaware, Montgomery and Chester), registrations have risen 6.3 percent. Those four more-cosmopolitan counties combined for an Obama margin of 611,724 votes in 2012, nearly twice his statewide margin of victory.

    And here’s the rub: If Trump’s “missing white voters” aren’t registering themselves to vote based on the allure of his promise to “Make America Great Again,” they need some pushing and pulling. Yeah, that’s right: Trump needs a field operation and voter-targeting analysis, all with the aim of getting his potential supporters registered right now. There’s no sign of that happening; such frills have been disdained by Team Garbage Fire, and the RNC has too much on its hands to make up for that lost opportunity.

    So in all probability, after this election we will hear again about “missing white voters.” But the idea that all they need to participate in an election is to find a candidate as raw and nostalgic as they are could take a beating.

  156. 156.

    Matt McIrvin

    September 30, 2016 at 2:46 pm

    @? Martin: That Gallup survey on intent to vote that Bailey linked to the other day is really worrying me–it suggests that this could be a dramatically low-turnout election, and that if everyone’s LV filters aren’t reflecting that, we could be in for a massively nasty surprise.

  157. 157.

    Barbara

    September 30, 2016 at 2:46 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est: Maybe Huntsman sees endorsing Trump as a way to rehabilitate himself — proof of re-education after having the audacity to be Obama’s ambassador to China?

  158. 158.

    hovercraft

    September 30, 2016 at 2:47 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est:
    True.

  159. 159.

    jl

    September 30, 2016 at 2:47 pm

    @Brachiator: I am glad to see it. The newspapers matter to a lot of us olds and near olds. These endorsement can salvage many of them for this election.

  160. 160.

    SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch

    September 30, 2016 at 2:48 pm

    Oh FFS.

    Happily, whatever these “audio issues” were seem to have been limited to the hall, and did not affect the audio feed that went out to millions and millions of viewers.

  161. 161.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    September 30, 2016 at 2:52 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est: @Barbara: I’ve said before, I remember KA Conway (Fitzpatrick, as was) from Maher’s old show when she was part of his stable of young and would-be hip female Republicans (Christine O’Donnell was another), and she specialized in giggly Brady Bunch metaphors and zany outfits that she and her mother probably thought were very rock’n’roll. Then a few years later I saw her on CSPAN giving a cogent, intelligent and honest assessment of politics. It was quite a shock to see her talking like a grown up. I’m just imagining the presentation she gave to the Mercers, the combination of data and flattery and power point that got her what I’m sure has been a very lucrative seat at the Wingnut Welfare Banquet.

  162. 162.

    ? Martin

    September 30, 2016 at 2:54 pm

    @Anoniminous: That’s the wrong conclusion to draw. The low response rate means that the poll will be more expensive and probably take longer to administer, not that it’ll be less accurate. If you are looking for a large sample with strong crosstabs (sometimes you don’t care about subtrends and can do with a smaller sample) you might want 2,000 respondents, so an 8% rate means that you need a sample population which is about 25,000 people. You can then see how well your 2000 respondents match your 25,000 person pool, and if it’s reasonably close you then apply your weightings to adjust the results and go. If it’s way off (only old white Republicans are answering) then you need to change your pool, your approach, etc. but that’s all normal stuff that pollsters do.

    I think a lot of people don’t realize how many layers there are to conducting a proper poll in terms of choosing a pool to sample (it’s not random) then comparing your respondent set to your invitation set, and then weighting the responses to match your expected demographic breakdown (which itself is a completely different model).

    In all of this I think the weak point this cycle is the expected demographic model. Response rates and so on are easy to adjust for and building the pool has never been easier because we have so much data on everyone. The real challenge is gaming out which types of people are going to vote this year. Who is staying home, who is energized. Because this election is so strange, I don’t think there’s a lot of historical trends you can rely on. I think there’s a shitton of flat out guessing in the turnout model.

  163. 163.

    Barbara

    September 30, 2016 at 2:54 pm

    @hovercraft: My father was born in Westmoreland County. It’s one county east of what I normally think of as the Pittsburgh metropolitan area, although it might be part of the Pittsburgh CBSA. I know these undecideds and Democrats, metaphorically speaking, because my brother is one of them. He never votes.

  164. 164.

    ET

    September 30, 2016 at 2:55 pm

    I am LOVING the series of anti-Trump ads that have all the people that he screwed out of money. GQ has them on their article on his meltdown.

  165. 165.

    ? Martin

    September 30, 2016 at 2:56 pm

    @Soylent Green:

    In a deep blue or deep red state, why bother to sport a yard sign or bumper sticker when you know your state is already in the bag?

    In 2008 and 2012, we had signs everywhere, and there was zero question who was going to win CA.

  166. 166.

    hueyplong

    September 30, 2016 at 2:56 pm

    A Clinton sign in my yard wouldn’t last 2 days.

    Monday I followed (at a distance) a pickup truck for 10 miles on the interstate. It marks the first 15 times I’ve seen the “rolling coal” effect. The truck had TRUMP on the back window in letters so large they covered the entirety of that window.

    My personal fantasy for the next debate is that, late in the going, Clinton will turn to Trump and say “You’re out of your element, Donnie.”

  167. 167.

    Trollhattan

    September 30, 2016 at 2:57 pm

    @Anoniminous: When we switched our land line from ATT analogue to local digital service provider, I jumped out of my skin the first time the annunciator said, “Call from bla bla bla.” Did not expect that one bit.

    And now, we only answer calls we recognize. I figure there are a few tens of millions of fellow land-line users in exactly the same boat. Polling cellphones is another kettle of fish with similar filtering outcomes.

  168. 168.

    Felonius Monk

    September 30, 2016 at 2:57 pm

    Rumor has it that in order for anyone to actually vote for Trump on election day they will have to sign his standard non-disclosure, non-disparagement agreement. There will be no buyers’ remorse.

  169. 169.

    ? Martin

    September 30, 2016 at 2:58 pm

    @Matt McIrvin: Yep, that’s the thing to worry about.

  170. 170.

    James

    September 30, 2016 at 3:00 pm

    I have seen ONE trump bumper sticker in Nashville. It was subed “Fuck your feelings” That plays real nice here n the Bible Belt.

  171. 171.

    SFAW

    September 30, 2016 at 3:01 pm

    @hueyplong:

    Clinton will turn to Trump and say “You’re out of your element, Donnie.”

    That would be good fun, but the “at least it’s an ethos” line would not apply to Corrupt Deadbeat Donnie — even if the Nazis are/were his soul mates.

  172. 172.

    yellowdog

    September 30, 2016 at 3:02 pm

    @James E Powell: Kaine was educated by Jesuits.

  173. 173.

    randy khan

    September 30, 2016 at 3:03 pm

    A commenter on LGM says that Trump is spending half of his TV money in Florida. That actually makes sense, as he really has no path to victory without it, but still – wow.

  174. 174.

    Bill Arnold

    September 30, 2016 at 3:03 pm

    @hovercraft:

    Newsweek Website Attacked After Report On Trump, Cuban Embargo
    “Last night we were on the receiving end of what our IT chief called a ‘massive’ DoS (denial of service) attack,” Impoco wrote in an email to TPM.

    Oh my. At this point I’m willing to believe rumors that the Trump campaign directly funds hacking operations. (Russian hackers or others, doesn’t matter. 40% odds that a purported money trail of some sort appears.)

  175. 175.

    hovercraft

    September 30, 2016 at 3:03 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:
    She’s been the GOP ‘specialist’ in courting the women voters for years. She is the one who coaches them on how not to offend us. She’s always brought in after one of them says something dumb. She was brought in after ” the body has ways to shut that whole thing down”, and after the one in Indiana. Her pitch is basically that she can help the GOP minimize the gender gap, and therefore win. She like to cite the 2014 gap, but that overlooks the fact that it’s simply a more republican electorate, so obviously the gender gap is narrower.
    Conway, Coulter, and the deceased Barbara Olsen, were part of a new generation of attractive young lawyers who were Phyllis Schlafly acolytes, all lawyers, who were to be deployed on TV to spread the Reagan revolution, and Schafly’s philosophy far and wide.

  176. 176.

    p.a.

    September 30, 2016 at 3:05 pm

    @hueyplong:

    A Clinton sign in my yard wouldn’t last 2 days.

    You, too, have a 2nd Amendment right to protect your property. 3 words:”I felt threatened.”

  177. 177.

    hovercraft

    September 30, 2016 at 3:05 pm

    @Barbara:
    Proving the articles point.

  178. 178.

    sunny raines

    September 30, 2016 at 3:05 pm

    Hell, the Republican Party recovered from the Bush 2.0 debacle in just a couple of years.

    to his everlasting shame, that avoidable miasma owes a whole lot to obama treating republicans as respectable and reasonable after the bush disasters in 2008 when the republican Congressional rat-flotsam were scurrying away as fast as they could form bush-the-lessor

  179. 179.

    Jeffro

    September 30, 2016 at 3:07 pm

    Btw Owen Ellickson is TEARING. IT. UP. on Twitter. omg

    He has Coulter and Nugent using black magic to (barely) derail a Chris Christie-led conference call coup following this Machado madness…

  180. 180.

    catclub

    September 30, 2016 at 3:07 pm

    @hovercraft:

    so he had to fall in line at some point.

    That makes a lot of sense. Follow the money. Who knew?

  181. 181.

    cmorenc

    September 30, 2016 at 3:10 pm

    @NR:

    Monmouth poll today has Hillary up by 6 in Nevada. Good to see, since that was one of the Obama states Trump had pretty consistently led in. Would like to see it confirmed with other polls though.

    What would be almost equally significant is if Hillary’s significant Nevada uptick among likely voters also creates an updraft for Catherine Cortez Masto, the Dem candidate for retiring Sen Harry Reid’s seat. A couple of extra seats can make a big difference in whether (and at how much difficulty) a Clinton SCOTUS nominee can win confirmation – which will near-certainly require some “nuclear option” type brinksmanship of the sort the GOP employed to win confirmation for Samuel Alito.

  182. 182.

    NotMax

    September 30, 2016 at 3:10 pm

    SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch

    Either way, so what?

    “‘Defective mic’ responsible for making stupid stuff come out of my mouth” makes no sense in any case.

    (The audio in the auditorium was seemingly just fine when the audience laughed derisively at hearing his comment about temperament.)

  183. 183.

    scav

    September 30, 2016 at 3:12 pm

    @? Martin: I still somehow feel that having such a low response rate leaves one more vulnerable to any systematic bias in the sort of people that actually bother with polls. For example, if the 8% are spoofers and the spoofer demographics just happen to match what you’re expecting to see, what then? I’d agree there’s still signal in there, I just somehow think there’s a hell of a lot more possible static in there as well.

  184. 184.

    jl

    September 30, 2016 at 3:12 pm

    @? Martin: Unless you have good info on why so many choose to not respond, a low response rate introduces threat of biased estimates, regardless of how long you run the poll to increase absolute number of responses. If the factor producing low response rate are not random, larger sample won’t help.

  185. 185.

    Mary G

    September 30, 2016 at 3:13 pm

    Jerusalem Post says Shimon Peres told them that he had to personally stop Bibi Netanyahu from bombing Iran in 2014, but they couldn’t print it until he was dead.

  186. 186.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    September 30, 2016 at 3:14 pm

    Everybody in the room thought this was a brilliant idea

    Robert Costa ‏@ costareports 6m6 minutes ago
    GIULIANI says Trump tonight will “demand that President Obama not pardon Hillary Clinton” for any possible legal issues

    If I could I would post that gif of Obama brushing the dirt off his shoulders from ’08

  187. 187.

    Trollhattan

    September 30, 2016 at 3:14 pm

    Sam Wang puts Florida back in the D category today and NYTimes bumps Hillary’s chances to 75%, up 5% from Wednesday. Is it too soon to request that Hillary cure my allergies?

  188. 188.

    NotMax

    September 30, 2016 at 3:16 pm

    @Bill Arnold

    Financing a regular stream of pizzas delivered to a corps of 400 pounders would be indirect funding.

    ;)

    (Pizza money funneled through Herman Cain? Irresponsible not to ask.   :) )

  189. 189.

    Trollhattan

    September 30, 2016 at 3:16 pm

    @Mary G:
    Israel (and the world) loses a lion and retains a jackal. Will they ever flush out Likud or are they a permanent ruling party?

  190. 190.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    September 30, 2016 at 3:17 pm

    @Trollhattan: in 2012 most media stopped polling FL cause it looked like Romney had it sewn up. Obama won by a narrow margin. I’ll be curious to see if/how heavy HRC goes with targeted media about Trump courting Castro in ’99. I don’t think most people care, but I also don’t know how many angry older Cubans there are in FL.

  191. 191.

    Trollhattan

    September 30, 2016 at 3:17 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:
    I demand Katy Perry provide me a lap dance.

    Seems equivalent.

  192. 192.

    Iowa Old Lady

    September 30, 2016 at 3:17 pm

    Trump, Gingrich, and Giuliani astonish me by how blithely they reveal their misogyny and male privilege. Is it just that they’re old guys and particularly jerky ones to boot?

    My husband is older than Trump and he would never talk about women the way Trump does.

  193. 193.

    Trollhattan

    September 30, 2016 at 3:19 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    but I also don’t know how many angry older Cubans there are in FL.

    Obligatory “All of them, Katie” but yeah, great questions. Am beginning to think Trump’s biggest problem is waning enthusiasm keeping his voters home. Sad!

  194. 194.

    hovercraft

    September 30, 2016 at 3:20 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:
    That’s gonna leave a….mark ?

  195. 195.

    redshirt

    September 30, 2016 at 3:23 pm

    I’m jealous. There are SO many Trump signs in my area. They all appeared a couple of weeks ago. Sadly, the old man way at the end of the road who I thought was a nice guy just put one up.

    On the list!

  196. 196.

    ? Martin

    September 30, 2016 at 3:23 pm

    @scav: And what’s the likelihood of that happening over repeated random polls across multiple pollsters? If you did get a result like that, you’d show up as an outlier. We hardly ever see that.

    You’re suggesting that out of 25,000 people you stumble across a large fraction of 2,000 that are all interested in gaming the poll, who also happen to demographically match the 25,000 – so Dems and Republicans, white, black, latino, married, single, young, old, gay, straight, rich, poor, Christian, Jew, atheist, are all motivated simultaneously out of 200 million potential poll recipients to game your poll?

    I can’t tell you how statistically unlikely that is against the background of all other possible undesirable results that are more likely. You’re more likely to be polling only felons than to get that result.

  197. 197.

    different-church-lady

    September 30, 2016 at 3:23 pm

    @? Martin: Look, I don’t have any inside understanding of how polling works, but it does seem incredibly odd to me that the operative procedure appears to the layperson to be, “There’s no way we can get a representative sample so we have to apply weighting and we can only guess at that.”

  198. 198.

    NotMax

    September 30, 2016 at 3:23 pm

    @Trollhattan

    Expecting (sad to say) a spate of stories of folks attempting to open carry weapons into and inside polling places.

    If poll working training does not already include what to do about and how to handle such situations, it damn well needs to.

  199. 199.

    hovercraft

    September 30, 2016 at 3:24 pm

    Well looky here:

    Google trends data indicates that the searches for voter registration have surged over the last week — and that the highest rates of searches have been in disproportionately Hispanic areas.

    By Wednesday evening, all of the top markets for searches for “register to vote” came in heavily Latino markets in Texas, California, Nevada, Arizona and Florida. The same pattern held into Thursday.

  200. 200.

    Jibeaux

    September 30, 2016 at 3:24 pm

    New season on Brooklyn Nine Nine has some great Florida jokes, btw. On hulu.

  201. 201.

    gogol's wife

    September 30, 2016 at 3:25 pm

    @hovercraft:

    Vamanos! Arriba, arriba!

  202. 202.

    gogol's wife

    September 30, 2016 at 3:26 pm

    @gogol’s wife:

    I mean Vamonos!

  203. 203.

    different-church-lady

    September 30, 2016 at 3:27 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch: Ah, so at least he still has a chance with the audience in the hall.

  204. 204.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    September 30, 2016 at 3:30 pm

    @Iowa Old Lady: the Ghastly Trio. Imagine a group in which Trump comes in last in a “how I humiliated your mother” contest.
    ETA: Well, I guess we don’t have to imagine it. They’re right there

  205. 205.

    Anoniminous

    September 30, 2016 at 3:30 pm

    @? Martin:

    Structurally Clinton is in the cat bird seat. Granted we need to do our GOTV part to make sure it happens. State-wide seats seem to be moving our way as well since the GOP took seats in the 2010 wave they had no business taking.

    It’s the House that’s the problem and if Democrats don’t take a bunch of House seats we’re looking at four more years of gridlock. At the CD level the GOP gerrymandering starts going wonky on ’em with this election but without a very good 30-and-under voter turnout the House won’t flip and depending on 30-and-unders to vote has been shown to be quixotic.

  206. 206.

    hovercraft

    September 30, 2016 at 3:33 pm

    @? Martin: @different-church-lady:
    The NY Times Upshot blog ran a test they gave four pollsters the same raw data, and they all came up with different results. It’s all about how they weight the sample. In other words guess.

  207. 207.

    Weaselone

    September 30, 2016 at 3:35 pm

    @? Martin:
    Its one poll.

  208. 208.

    Barbara

    September 30, 2016 at 3:36 pm

    @hovercraft: What I don’t know or can’t know is the extent to which what we see at Trump rallies reflects the enthusiasm of finally feeling like one has permission to express as they say politically incorrect sentiments in crude terms, and whether, for some people, that’s all they really want. In other words, that they have gained what they want just by the fact that Trump is running. “All I want is the right to call a bitch a bitch.” I guess we’ll find out.

  209. 209.

    Jim Parene

    September 30, 2016 at 3:39 pm

    @Mike J: Awsome!

  210. 210.

    ? Martin

    September 30, 2016 at 3:42 pm

    @different-church-lady: There’s two things here:

    1) Build a model to determine a representative sample.
    2) Sample that population and weight the result to match the model.

    Voter polling is hard because you don’t know who is going to vote. You either need to poll that, or you need to work from historical models (you should be doing both). So unlike a ‘x % of Americans think of’ where the population of Americans is a known thing, voter polling is tricky because you’re having to work out who will bother to vote.

    In either case, when you sample the population you never get responses right down the line that you want. If you know young people are harder to sample because they are all on cell phones, then you put more of them in the pool expecting that fewer will actually participate. But no matter how well you do that, it never quite matches. So if your voter turnout model is 35% Dem, 35% GOP, 30% Ind, and you get polling results which are 40% Dem, 30% GOP, 30% Ind, then you’re going to underweight the Dem results until their opinions only match 35% of the result, overweight the GOP so they match 35% and try and hold the Ind the same. That’s easier said then done because you’ll have other mismatches along gender, race, income, and so on that all need to be tweaked as well, but which inevitably affect other groups. For example, if you have no black republican respondents in your group but blacks are underrepresented in your overall results, you want to overweight the black responses but you can’t really afford to overweight either the Dem results (which are already over) or the Ind results which are where you want them to be. There’s a bunch of fidgeting that gets done to make this all work out.

    But this is how ALL population modeling and sampling is done. It’s all very well understood and there are great tools now to help you do it well. There shouldn’t be any real disparities in the weighting part from any pollster. But the population model can be all over the place. That’s why USC/LATimes is so out in the weeds.

    You also see some pollsters that go back to the same sample group. Sometimes you want to do that to do specific A/B style measurements, but otherwise that’s a terrible idea. Those pollsters tend to get de-emphasized by folks like Nate and Sam Wang.

  211. 211.

    Chip Daniels

    September 30, 2016 at 3:43 pm

    “Welcome to the Trump Talk phone line!
    Please press 1 for English…”

  212. 212.

    Soylent Green

    September 30, 2016 at 3:43 pm

    Clinton will turn to Trump and say “You’re out of your element, Donnie.”

    I’ll settle for “Shut the fuck up, Donnie.”

  213. 213.

    Anoniminous

    September 30, 2016 at 3:44 pm

    @Trollhattan:

    The under-35 mob is mobile only and despite the self-serving persiflage from polling companies it is time consuming and expensive to get remotely accurate data, and even then Only-Maybe. For-public-consumption polls the purchasers – usually some Infotainment Medium company – aren’t willing to spend the bucks to even try. This is why we’re seeing demographics-from-LaLaLand be reported.

  214. 214.

    sukabi

    September 30, 2016 at 3:44 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est: pretty sure he climbed into the sewer WITHOUT a push.

  215. 215.

    ? Martin

    September 30, 2016 at 3:44 pm

    @Weaselone: Yeah, I wasn’t trying to validate the poll, rather to reinforce that the thing to worry about is that the turnout model is way off. Everyone’s turnout model could be way off. They were off pretty badly in 2012, for example. I would expect them to be off by more this cycle. Now, I think that will favor rather than hurt Clinton, but that’s just my guess.

  216. 216.

    Mnemosyne

    September 30, 2016 at 3:45 pm

    @Mike J:

    I’m going to be in NV for the weekend starting tomorrow for one last big voter registration push before their early voting begins next week. I’m staying overnight, so I’m taking Adam’s recommendation to get a nice steak at THE Steakhouse at Circus Circus (the campaign hotel) on Saturday night.

  217. 217.

    liberal

    September 30, 2016 at 3:48 pm

    @Elizabelle:

    And how is No Labels taking this, you might ask? (Or not …)

    The former governor says a “perfect choice” doesn’t exist, and he’s motivated to back Trump because he will take on the Washington establishment.

    LOL.

  218. 218.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    September 30, 2016 at 3:49 pm

    Bubba, Bubba, Bubba. One of you has a job, you know

    Bill Clinton Keeps An Impatient Obama Waiting On Air Force One (VIDEO).

  219. 219.

    Mary G

    September 30, 2016 at 3:50 pm

    Tom Stevenson has a piece in the Atlantic today about not winning the Royal Society prize. He fisks some guy who said the winner only won because she’s a girl.

  220. 220.

    liberal

    September 30, 2016 at 3:51 pm

    @Soylent Green:

    In a deep blue or deep red state, why bother to sport a yard sign or bumper sticker when you know your state is already in the bag?

    I live in a very wealthy suburb in MA (we joke we’re the poorest people in the neighborhood), and one reason is to tell your Republican neighbors to fuck off.

  221. 221.

    WereBear

    September 30, 2016 at 3:52 pm

    Baumgardner, a 20-year political operative who has worked on four presidential campaigns

    So she started at the age of four?

    That sounds about the maturity level of a Trump campaign…

  222. 222.

    scav

    September 30, 2016 at 3:53 pm

    @? Martin: My example was exactly designed to be an outlier to prove the basic point, which is essentially (to my eyes at least) what jl was saying immediately below me: if there is systematic bias in the type of the people who respond to polls, having an 8% response rate and just carrying on until things match some necessarily limited measure of things you expect to see doesn’t mean you’ve necessarily eliminated the systematic bias. It may very well be something you’re not comparing against (and furthermore the measures one chooses to think of as important to control against may also be warping things a bit.) Having an 8% response rate is not comparable to having an 80% — there seem to be a lot more assumptions and methodological tweaks to make it work.

  223. 223.

    Calouste

    September 30, 2016 at 3:54 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Obama will probably reply that he doesn’t know of any cases that Clinton is currently in court for, but that be evenhanded, he won’t pardon Trump either for any of cases he is actually in court for at the moment, including ripping off students at Trump University and raping a 13 year old.

  224. 224.

    ? Martin

    September 30, 2016 at 3:54 pm

    @Anoniminous: I agree completely. Everything suggests she’s got this, and probably more. I think the feminazi brigade is overestimated. The reason these people are loud is to look bigger than they actually are (same goes for code pink, FWIW). So for turnout upside/downside Clinton I think has women and minorities (who are a naturally growing demographic as well) as upside and Rush Limbaugh listeners and millennials (who are also a naturally growing demographic) as downside. The good news on the millennials is that they aren’t breaking for Trump, but they are a potential loss from the Obama demographics, so their impact is roughly cut in half.

  225. 225.

    ? Martin

    September 30, 2016 at 3:56 pm

    @scav: You’re assuming a systematic bias. You can easily measure that bias while conducting the poll. If there is a systematic bias, you simply don’t release the poll. I don’t know any regular political pollster that would release a poll biased in that way. That would destroy their credibility with the outlets that pay them.

  226. 226.

    pamelabrown53

    September 30, 2016 at 3:56 pm

    @liberal: #215

    LOL is right. Huntsman, whom many of us wanted to believe was sane and sentient just pulled himself a Ted Cruz, i.e. ruined and that bullshit “No Labels” . By endorsing Trump, Hunt singlehandedly obliterated his chances with anyone who previously tried to keep an open mind and take him seriously.

  227. 227.

    scav

    September 30, 2016 at 4:02 pm

    @? Martin: You’re still assuming you know what the bias is beforehand so you can measure it. To return to the dumb example, how are you going to measure oversampling trolls and then compensate with techniques that may only amplify what you expect to see?

  228. 228.

    different-church-lady

    September 30, 2016 at 4:03 pm

    @WereBear: See, now that’s at least three people (myself included) who mistakenly inserted the word “old” after “20-year”. Human cognition is a mysterious thing.

  229. 229.

    different-church-lady

    September 30, 2016 at 4:04 pm

    @scav: Yeah, that’s exactly what’s mystifying me too.

  230. 230.

    Mnemosyne

    September 30, 2016 at 4:05 pm

    @? Martin:

    I’ve seen a couple in Burbank. One huge banner on someone’s house, and one back-window-of-a-pickup decoration on a truck driving ahead of me.

    Not surprisingly, his pickup kept veering to the right.

  231. 231.

    Trollhattan

    September 30, 2016 at 4:06 pm

    @WereBear:
    That’s how I first read it, too, and was willing to go along with her being in the GWB campaign at four. “Mommy, keep me away from Mister Cheney, please!”

  232. 232.

    Turgidson

    September 30, 2016 at 4:23 pm

    @clay:

    Which is why Ted Cruz, whiz kid that he is, picked the absolute dumbest time to endorse Trump. Way too late to mean anything, and right before Trump self-immolated before 80 million viewers.

    I think Tailgunner Ted probably saw that the polls were close and decided to endorse when he did because a) he’d try to claim some share of credit for pushing Drumpf over the top if he wins; b) he doesn’t want Drumpf carrying out vendettas against him from the White House if he does win; and c) he can look more like a team player whenever he inevitably runs again.

    But he waited too long to pull the trigger on making it public, and did it just as Trump started to fall back again and not long before Trump lit himself on fire in full public view. Nice work, Tailgunner. Nice work.

  233. 233.

    Suffragete City elftx

    September 30, 2016 at 4:25 pm

    I’ve had “Hey Nineteen” in my head since Dr. Bloor posted a cpl lines in the thread below.
    Not my fave Steely Dan but o so appropriate.

  234. 234.

    D58826

    September 30, 2016 at 4:35 pm

    OH FSM!!!!! Just when I thought the election cycle could not get any worse – Linda Tripp has returned from the Death Star. Seems that it was only her timely intervention in 1998 that prevented the Clintons from eliminating Monica since the Clintons are such soulless murders. They will kill anyone who stands in the way of their evil plans. Which of course begs the question – Linda why are you still alive?.

  235. 235.

    jonas

    September 30, 2016 at 4:37 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    “This is the new Benghazi lie,”

    How does that even make any bloody sense? Is Gingrich copping to the fact that the whole Benghazi “scandal” was a lie? Or is he suggesting that Clinton is lying about Trump’s misogynistic comments towards Ms. Achado? Trump repeated them all verbatim on live TV the next day!

  236. 236.

    Villago Delenda Est

    September 30, 2016 at 4:38 pm

    @pamelabrown53: “No Labels” is really “Assholes who are too embarrassed to call themselves Republicans anymore”

  237. 237.

    Villago Delenda Est

    September 30, 2016 at 4:39 pm

    @jonas: Gingrich, being a vile piece of shit whose head would look infinitely better on a pike than on his shoulders, is one of those people that Orwell warned us about.

  238. 238.

    mikefromArlington

    September 30, 2016 at 4:59 pm

    Who feels better about the election than they did 2 weeks ago? :)

  239. 239.

    Brachiator

    September 30, 2016 at 5:01 pm

    @D58826:

    OH FSM!!!!! Just when I thought the election cycle could not get any worse – Linda Tripp has returned from the Death Star.

    OK. So, I’m confused, now. Is this election a referendum on Bill Clinton’s presidency?

    All these ghosts of Christmas past are crazier than a Dickens story.

    Vince Foster was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Hillary Clinton signed it: and Clinton’s name was good upon ’Change, for anything she chose to put her hand to. Old Foster was as dead as a door-nail.

    Queue Monica Lewinsky’s dress, floating like an apparition before a furiously tweeting Donald Trump.

  240. 240.

    NoraLenderbee

    September 30, 2016 at 5:02 pm

    @Fair Economist:

    the sex tape he’s referring to is a parody porn of his own show.

    Can’t. Stop. Laughing.

  241. 241.

    Mister Forkbeard

    September 30, 2016 at 5:32 pm

    @jonas: From what I can tell, this is the logical construction:

    1) Hillary obviously lied about how Benghazi started, for nefarious reasons to tip the election to Obama.
    2) Hillary is lying about Machado and what Trump said about her, for nefarious reasons to tip the election to herself.
    3) Also, Benghazi.

    Yeah, it doesn’t make any sense to me either. But I’ve been engaging people on facebook today, and I’m getting Benghazi theories and “proven election rigging” charges from BoBs, Steiniacs, and conservatives. I’m starting to get a better idea of how they’re processing this stuff, and none of it makes any actual sense.

  242. 242.

    PPCLI

    September 30, 2016 at 6:09 pm

    @D58826: Another winner. A woman who — for her own selfish reasons — posed as a sympathetic friend and surreptitiously [and illegally] taped her conversations with a love-struck young girl then turned her in to Kenneth Starr (former Inspector Javert and more recently enabler of college rapists.)

    Yes, I’m sure she will rake in the women’s vote.

  243. 243.

    Uncle Cosmo

    September 30, 2016 at 6:09 pm

    @Barbara: My paternal grandfather (d. 1917) is buried in Westmoreland County. The homestead was in Fayette County, south of Masontown along the Monongahela, & the whole family assumed that’s where he was laid to rest. Led to a lot of fruitless trudging through graveyards about a decade back when 3 of us nephews accompanied Dad’s kid half-brother (who passed away this past spring at almost 89) on a day-trip out there from Baltimore. Just a couple of years back some “gravespotter” registered the location on the Net & a friend dug it up.

    Westmoreland & Fayette both seem pretty Appalachian. I know when we were kicking around the old family stomping grounds it sure felt like The Sticks.

  244. 244.

    The Lodger

    September 30, 2016 at 6:23 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est: There are several ways of behaving in a Lannister-like fashion. I didn’t immediately think of paying debts.

  245. 245.

    Walker

    September 30, 2016 at 6:53 pm

    Huntsman is done. I think 2020 candidate will be Kaisch. His act of distancing himself from Trump is looking very smart now, despite the fact that Ohio will probably go Trump.

  246. 246.

    JR in WV

    September 30, 2016 at 7:31 pm

    @Florida Frog:

    “It’s a white thing – you wouldn’t understand!” is a Trump bumper sticker?

    Well, I’m about as white as you can get, and truly, I do not understand !!!

  247. 247.

    JR in WV

    September 30, 2016 at 7:41 pm

    @manyakitty:

    My parents had a place in Osprey, just north of Venice. We enjoyed visiting that area for years, until they could no longer travel. I helped my Dad close up their condo one winter, and movers came to ship everything to either us in WV or my brother in TX.

    At first, the Ringling Bros, Barnum and Bailey Circus was HQ in Venice, don’t know where they moved to for winter location. There were very interesting folks from all over the world around from that circus.

    Is it still nice? And Sarasota?

  248. 248.

    The Lodger

    September 30, 2016 at 8:14 pm

    @hovercraft: Conway, Coulter, and the deceased Barbara Olsen, were part of a new generation of attractive young lawyers
    What happened to them?

  249. 249.

    hovercraft

    September 30, 2016 at 8:27 pm

    @The Lodger:
    I don’t understand

  250. 250.

    Original Lee

    September 30, 2016 at 9:39 pm

    @bemused: One friend in Chicago has canceled his subscription. Not sure about anyone else I know there.

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